Letters to the EditorYour emails to EcommerceBytesFor consideration, send your email to ina@auctionbytes.com with "Letters to the Editor Blog" in the subject line! Remember to include your name as you would like it to appear in the blog.

Hey Ina, Did you know that buyers can leave retaliatory feedback if you open an unpaid item against them? So if they don't pay, you open an unpaid item to get your money back....they decide to pay a few days later. You ship the item.

Then they can neg you and hit your stars if they are mad you opened a case against them. I had it happen to me yesterday and I was told buyers are allowed to do that. I was told me it's a negative experience for them and its allowed.

Makes you not want to open unpaid item disputes and just eat all the money that you will lose. Do you know why this is allowed to happen on eBay? Scott

eBay has an obligation to their shareholders - Lourie Norington, Johnny D, Uncle Grifter, Meg and the corrupt crew.

Don't think eBay likes the buyers more than the sellers - you're both just money to be had.

BUYERS AND POOR SELLERS FUND EBAY. When you don't make a profit you pay eBay. When you DO make a profit, the buyer is paying the eBay fees.

If eBay loved the buyer so much why would they be charging Final Victim Fees on shipping?

Because it's the ''industry standard'' to steal from people.

THAT MAKES IT OKAY, IT'S ONLY BUSINESS.

Maybe you should not do business with scoundrels.

Deadbeat Buyers on eBay Can Leave Retaliatory Feed

by: STOP IMPOSING YOUR FAILED INNOVATION ON US JD

Wed Mar 23 08:21:34 2011

Had it happen to me a few times, don't feel bad

Then I called up their Broken Englsh speaking Trust and safety from the Orient somewhere, and was told DSR's are anonymous and to be happy I get the FVF back

They did not care or give a rat's @ss about me getting dinged and ruining all my TRS hardwork

I hate myself so bad for selling on eBay, I pray I will find another way to survive in the future, and if I am blessed to find another another way to earn my living, I will never lok back at ebay, nor my friends, nor my family for what they have done to me and tons of other sellers

I grow so tired of someone in the Phillipines or wherever in the Orient the broken English speaking Reps are telling me they know my frustration, becuase they sell also

Yeah right ! Give up your job as Customer support, cause you are of no support to anyone seller with a valid problem ! And try to earn your living solely selling on your precious site, and have a non paying bidder neg you and ding you

That is anohter thing, in the old days when you had a non paying bidder, eBay had a add buyer to blocked list, they took that away, they want us to bend over again in the future, so the nasty non paying bidder can ding us again and reclaim that 20% discount for the top brass at ebays fat checkbooks

Deadbeat Buyers on eBay Can Leave Retaliatory Feed

by: Kevin

Wed Mar 23 08:56:37 2011

Had that happen to me too awhile back.

Buyer didn't pay

I open case

They want shipping reduced or they will neg me

I say sorry, it's already at my cost and you won your items for a buck each. If I reduce, I'm paying you to take it. I offer to cancel as a gesture of goodwill

I send them a cancel transaction request. They cancel and then leave a neg.

I contact ebay. They inform me this does not meet their definition of feedback extortion

I tell them that the buyer didn't pay, I try to provide good customer service and cancel so they don't get a strike and they can leave a neg? "yes". Can you remove it? "No"

Yet another reason why I'm leaving ebay. Got tons of reasons though. I could write a book

Deadbeat Buyers on eBay Can Leave Retaliatory Feed

by: Tony DeLuca

Wed Mar 23 09:07:53 2011

Think of it this way: if a dead-beat buyer ruins your TRS status eBay doesn't have to pay out the 20% reduction in final value fees. Just another underhanded way eBay sticks it to the small seller all the while lying to the media and Wall Street about what a great company they are and how low their fees are.

TRS status is supposed to be an incentive -- something to aspire to. Instead, eBay uses the whole corrupt program as a club and we my brother are the baby seals.

Game over.

Deadbeat Buyers on eBay Can Leave Retaliatory Feed

by: Rick1313

Wed Mar 23 09:23:38 2011

My whole legal situation with eBay,inc. started with a buyer (who also sells) leaving fraudulent DSR's behind a false positive.

This was done after a mutually agreed cancellation of the transaction (initiated by buyer). During the process of canceling the transaction, the buyer even threatened retaliation in an email exchange.

eBay was immediately called and said that they had my back covered.

Three days later, buyer did pull a fast one and eBay proceeded to cover my back with a point of a knife.

To eBay, unlike the rest of the business/legal world, a mutually agreed cancellation of a transaction (which is the wording eBay has seller and buyer using) is not really mutual or canceled as buyer can still affect a seller's performance record on a transaction that no longer exists once both parties have agreed to it.

They say take us to court...blah, blah, blah.

So I did, just not in the way they would hope (contest the feedback/DSR), but putting them liable for damages due to their inaction of protecting the user who is paying to make use of their operating system.

There's even the possibility of losing FVF as, if buyer declines the mutual, eBay does not allow seller to open an UPI against buyer. eBay,inc. feels that they are working in good faith by giving seller only one shot at trying to recoup FVF on a sale that will not see completion.

eBay,inc. can spin all they want about how and when they will protect the paying users like myself and the OP.

I'm just granting their wishes and having them state so in a court of law (with all email communications on the matter also entered as evidence).

Each seller has their own way on how to protect their business.

For eBay,inc., I chose the way they keep on telling me to use...take them to court to get things changed as they will address the issue in that ''venue''.

Time will tell if they are willing to participate in a ''venue'' that they do not control or can cut communication with seller.

Though, on that last point, eBay may be contemplating doing so.

While contesting my first small claims case, they claimed no liability and left it at that.

To me, they sent a registered letter claiming no liability (jurisdiction) and wanting to ''appear'' in court via teleconferencing. That is, they want to stay in San Jose.

Wonder if they are thinking of hanging up on the judge if they do not like the way the proceedings are going.

Also, in contrast to their quarterly reports, they seem to be short funds as they cannot afford a trip to Montreal.

Deadbeat Buyers on eBay Can Leave Retaliatory Feed

by: Ed

Wed Mar 23 11:08:55 2011

I hope this unpaid problem all ends with the new "Shopping Cart" that eBay is to roll out this summer. This is so long over due I am embarrassed for eBay.

Deadbeat Buyers on eBay Can Leave Retaliatory Feed

by: STOP IMPOSING YOUR FAILED INNOVATION ON US JD

Wed Mar 23 11:21:19 2011

Ed, Ric or anyone, do you know where I can find out more info on exactly how the shopping cart is to work ?

What if I have 1 particular item for sale, buyer adds it to their cart, but does not buy it now ?

Does that mean i can't sell my auction item ? Does it mean if I can and someone buys it other than the buyer who put it in a cart, that when the buyer descided that they want it cause they put in a cart that I must still have it even though someone else bought it and paid first ?

I do not want any buyer stopping me from selling a 1 of a kind item putting it in a cart, and not paying, Nor do I want to sell a 1 of a kind item then have a buyer tell me 2 weeks later they want to buy and pay the item they put in their cart, and that I had better have one for them

Couple of things...if you contact Ebay sometimes they will remove the negative if it was indeed after a case was opened...you might get more than one no answer before you get a yes.

Also, if it is in anyway retalitory...i.e. they make any reference to the unpaid item case, Ebay will remove it as retalitory if you ask them..if they leave a negative but do not reference the unpaid item it is a lot less clear if it can be removed.

Deadbeat Buyers on eBay Can Leave Retaliatory Feed

by: Ellen Highwater

Wed Mar 23 11:38:37 2011

@ StopImposing...

From everything I've read, it appears that the eBay shopping cart is just a Glorified Bookmark feature.

Even though a customer places the item in their cart, it's not THEIRS until they complete the sale.

Limited quantity items and OOAK items that are placed in a buyer's cart are still available for *others* to purchase if the buyer has not completed their checkout.

This makes sense to me, as I'd REALLY be annoyed if someone could tie-up my merchandise by simply placing it in their cart... and then forgetting about it.

HOWEVER... I can also see the potential for BUYER DISAPPOINTMENT ... which will result in the buyer taking out their anger on the Seller.

HOW? ~~ You've got 25 Widgets for sale, and a Buyer places *all 25* in their cart, and continues to browse.

Meanwhile, another buyer makes a quick BIN purchase of 5 Widgets. This leaves only 20 Widgets in the first Buyer's cart.

Next, the first Buyer checks out...not noticing that the number of Widgets in their cart has been reduced... and they proceed along their merry way, believing that they will receive the 25 widgets they need.

When the widgets arrive, the buyer is FURIOUS that the Seller ''forgot'' to include all 25 widgets... and the Seller must suffer the consequences.

I suppose that people a basically good... but the average eBay buyer is basically clueless and NOT observant. They don't read descriptions. They don't read eBay alerts, warnings, or messages.

I think that the eBay shopping cart is going to be COUNTER-INTUITIVE to what most shoppers are going to expect. --- They will believe that once an item is IN their cart, it's THEIRS!! They'll think it's SAFE and they can come back in three days to finish their check-out.

Many buyers need to be SPOON-FED and HAND-HELD through everything, and eBay doesn't have a very good history of being able to effectively explain procedures to buyers.

This won't be pretty.

Deadbeat Buyers on eBay Can Leave Retaliatory Feed

by: Elaine

Wed Mar 23 11:44:21 2011

According to what I've read, if a buyer puts an item in their cart, it will still remain available for sale, until they actually pay!

Deadbeat Buyers on eBay Can Leave Retaliatory Feed

by: STOP IMPOSING YOUR FAILED INNOVATION ON US JD

Wed Mar 23 12:22:19 2011

Thank you Ellen for your reply

Deadbeat Buyers on eBay Can Leave Retaliatory Feed

by: Betty

Wed Mar 23 12:41:42 2011

It seems to me that ebay is actually ELIMINATING the "SALE" and replacing it with just a shopping cart, which really means nothing until you check out.

Of course ebay will not explain this well to the buyers and when they do learn they LOST one or most of the items because they waited too long to checkout they will take it out on the sellers as usual. ebay will of course do NOTHING about it and give us the same old song and dance about how it is "freedom of speech, their opinion", and ever other BS line to tell the sellers to GO POUND SAND because they just do not care.

@Ellen,you wrote: "Next, the first Buyer checks out...not noticing that the number of Widgets in their cart has been reduced... and they proceed along their merry way, believing that they will receive the 25 widgets they need.

When the widgets arrive, the buyer is FURIOUS that the Seller ''forgot'' to include all 25 widgets... and the Seller must suffer the consequences."

I do not see how this should or could happen. If they only paid for 20 widgets why would they be expecting 25. They will know they lost items at checkout.

The problem is they will blame the SELLERS rather than ebay or themselves because they lost the 5 items.

However, I will say that as long as ebay does not allow cart only shoppers to leave feedback then this does have an upside compared to ebay current FLAWED setup.

Deadbeat Buyers on eBay Can Leave Retaliatory Feed

by: doboy

Wed Mar 23 16:23:30 2011

eBay allows it to keep sellers from achieving Top Rated Seller status. eBay doesn't want to give them the 20% discount on fees. Costs the seller and increases eBay profits. eBay does not support its sellers. It hates them!

Deadbeat Buyers on eBay Can Leave Retaliatory Feed

by: Ellen Highwater

Wed Mar 23 17:23:50 2011

Betty asks: ''I do not see how this should or could happen. If they only paid for 20 widgets why would they be expecting 25. They will know they lost items at checkout.''

It's my experience that customers are often oblivious to the things that go on around them. No matter how obvious it may be to rational and observant people.

I'm confident that there will be a significant number of buyers who will fail to notice that the number of widgets in their cart has been reduced. Those are the same ones who just blindly click click click in a race to get to the checkout finish line... without regard to the total number of items that they are actually purchasing.

With tunnel-vision and a one-track mind, they only know that they put 25 items IN the cart, and regardless of any other warnings or messages to the contrary, the barrel forward, full steam ahead... firm in their belief that they are actually purchasing 25 widgets and that they should RECEIVE 25 widgets.

Obviously this won't happen every time... but there are a significant number of clueless shoppers who will proceed along the path I've described... and who WILL take it out on the Seller.

Typically, those are the ones who have been taught to believe that they need to take NO RESPONSIBILITY in their end of the bargain, and that they are not responsible for their OWN mistakes. These are the types of Buyers that eBay caters to. These are the types of Buyers that eBay encourages. And these are the types of Buyers that are the bane of a Seller's existence.

I understand all the frustration but do we know if eBay will stop the first buyer from purchasing the 20 Widgets without that buyer having to make a positive action (e.g. mouse click, check box, etc.)

we too had a buyer who had been refunded their money 20 days earlier leave negative feedback because we wouldn't apologize to them.

we were fortunate and got a "human being" who understood and they removed it as well as the negative DSRs. All was good

a month passes and it reappears. One call to eBay and they say it was removed in error and another person said it should not have been removed. I couldn't get them or their supposed supervisor to understand, or they didn't care because it was 10:00am EST time so I have no idea what time is was there, I realized all the times I've been helped (sorry I have had no negative calls to eBay except this one disinterested one out of 15)it had been around 10:pm EST time. I have no idea if that is a valid theory or not. However, I filled a second feedback extortion case and called again around 9:30pm EST. I got another "human being" and they had it removed as well as the DSRs as well as putting a big bold note in the file to leave it alone.

so I had the same negative feedback removed 2 different times. One lesson we learned early on (we sold our first item 9/6/2010 and on our 3td sale we got scammed) was to, if your suspicious of a buyer document everything.

so far we've had 4 cases removed (2 really as one case counts as 2 infractions) and 1 feedback removed.

am I happy with eBay no but I have to give them their do as well.

Deadbeat Buyers on eBay Can Leave Retaliatory Feed

by: Normal Norma

Thu Mar 24 08:37:22 2011

I think it's appropriate to have procedures in place to handle consumer complaints and to address issues caused by ''bad sellers'' or negligent sellers.

HOWEVER... if those procedures are going to be in place, then there MUST be a minimal amount of consistency, and thoroughness, and FAIRNESS.

There must be some intelligent human interaction that can look at the facts and take reasonable action (or reasonable corrective action) based on the evidence. The poorly programmed artificial intelligence is NO SUBSTITUTE for an actual human being who has been properly trained and who has English comprehension skills.

I think it's fair to say that a large percentage of cases are opened in error, or without justification, or prematurely. It is tragic that honest hard-working small Sellers must be unfairly punished for these types of errors. The policies that PERMIT these types of mistakes should be CHANGED...or at the very least, some basic human COMMON SENSE should prevail when these errors are brought to someone's attention.

Consumer protections are good, but when they're ''too good'' and ''too one-sided'', then they become a TOOL to be used by those who seek to intentionally take advantage of the situation at the Seller's expense. When there is no human intervention and no human review, the Sellers have no recourse to seek any type of correction when an error has been made... and the dishonest buyer knows that they can get away with just about anything.

Adding insult to injury... on top of all these inadequate procedures... we also must endure eBay's OVERT ENCOURAGEMENT of this type of behavior.

Not that the criminal-minded individual need encouragement (they'll do it anyway) but eBay is ACTIVELY planting doubts and fears in the minds of ordinary buyers... and URGING them to open cases for the most insignificant reasons.

Dust on your used vase? Open a case!A dented corner on the box? Open a case!The 100 year old book smells ''old''? Open a case!

If eBay spent only HALF as much time encouraging DIRECT COMMUNICATION... and less time encouraging open cases as a first course of action, the eBay world would be a much better place.

This system is TRAGICALLY FLAWED and eBay's myopic actions only serve to make a bad situation even worse.

Ebay creates an extremely RISKY environment for sellers and a WELCOMING environment for scammers and folks who are simply too irresponsible to be conducting business on the Internet in the first place.

It's no wonder why so many GOOD sellers are leaving... and the only ones who remain are the junk sellers and newbie sellers. ~ eBay's short-sighted efforts to ''clean up'' the site have made it impossible for good sellers to conduct business in a reasonable way. This leaves ONLY the bad sellers!

Of course, eBay's efforts to ''clean up'' the site are TOTALLY INEFFECTIVE against the bad sellers. They simply don't care about the policies. And when they are eventually shut down or NARU'd, they'll open another account and they'll be selling again within 2-3 hours.

eBay's policies are having the OPPOSITE EFFECT. Good sellers leave (permanently) and the bad sellers keep returning.

Deadbeat Buyers on eBay Can Leave Retaliatory Feed

by: matt

Thu Mar 24 17:38:30 2011

I am a little confused by OP's post.

You open an unpaid item case.....the buyer then paid....why shouldn't they be able to post feedback? They paid.

The whole intention is for people who NEVER pay to not be able to leave feedback.

To the responder who said the buyer wanted reduced shipping after you opened up unpaid item dispute....who cares? Let em neg you. Once you close the unpaid item dispute (and assuming they don't pay)....you email Ebay and they will remove it. Pretty simple.

Deadbeat Buyers on eBay Can Leave Retaliatory Feed

by: sassykat

Thu Mar 24 20:10:09 2011

From my understanding, if you use ebays unpaid item assistant, they cannot leave feedback if you had to file a claim, and they never pay.

Deadbeat Buyers on eBay Can Leave Retaliatory Feed

by: ken

Thu Mar 24 23:16:22 2011

The problem is that if you get 5 unpaid items by 5 different buyers a week what do you do?

Do you open up an unpaid item against them or just give up the fees and move on?

If you open up an unpaid item and they dont pay or respond,thats great you get your fees back and they cant leave feedback,

BUT if they decide to pay they can now be mad that you opened up a case against them and neg you.

Imagine losing your TRS or being kicked off ebay because buyers like this while you are just trying to get your fees back or get paid? you as a seller are doing NOTHING wrong and going about the process just like ebay tells you to.

This is just a way for ebay to scare sellers into not opening up unpaid items against buyers who buy but dont pay so sellers dont get their fees back(more $$ in ebays pockets)

Sellers have every right to get their fees back from these deadbeat buyers and ebay allowing these buyers to pay then neg you and give you all 1's on your stars is just plain WRONG.

Does not seem fair when a seller is just trying to get paid and/or get their fees back

Deadbeat Buyers on eBay Can Leave Retaliatory Feed

by: ken

Thu Mar 24 23:21:08 2011

"You open an unpaid item case.....the buyer then paid....why shouldn't they be able to post feedback? They paid. "

so MATT...you sell a bunch of things on ebay and 6 people dont pay.

You open up 6 unpaid item cases against these buyers.

4 decide to pay, after they pay they all give you a negative for opening up a case against them and all give you 1's across the board on the stars.

Now ebay suspends you because you have too many negatives and low stars all because of bad buyers and not because of anything you did or the product that you sell.

How is that fair that you are suspended for life from ebay because of these deadbeat buyers??

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